Not yet on the ropes

By Philip McCarthyMarch 6 2002

America's sweetheart: Meg Ryan

There's a certain nervous expectancy, something almost a little electrically charged, when Meg Ryan walks into a room.

It has nothing to do with her manner; she exudes the chirpy amiability that went naturally with her screen status as "America's sweetheart". And it's not as if her latest film, Kate and Leopold, is a huge departure stylistically for her: it is the sort of diverting, romantic comedy with which Ryan pretty much made her Hollywood reputation in films such as When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail.

We're in a Los Angeles hotel room and she's wearing a burnt orange sweater, a green skirt and purple boots and her signature, tousled, blonde locks. But not even the funky colour and fabric combination accounts for the static cling of the moment.

Ryan has had a tumultuous year and there is a certain voyeuristic fascination with how she's doing. Everyone is interested in taking her pulse but the mere fact that she's here talking up her new movie suggests that, for her, the beat goes on. ");document.write("

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First, there was the break-up with husband Dennis Quaid. Then the quick burn-out of an affair with Russell Crowe with the inevitable media frenzy about how connected, or not, the two events were. Her interviews for Kate and Leopold - in which she stars opposite another Australian, Hugh Jackman - are the first since she became tabloid fodder after years of power-couple stability.

So, when Ryan talks about her character in Kate and Leopold "compromising continuously on her quest for emotional satisfaction" you can't help wondering about the resonance to her own life. When she talks about "all those complications that creep into how men and women relate to each other", you can't help refracting her words through the prism of her relationships with Quaid and Crowe. And, of course, when she mentions the status that she shares with her character - they're both single, working women.

In a strategic move for today's press junket, Ryan has agreed to do what are called "print round tables", in which half a dozen or so journalists sit down with her to discuss the movie and whatever else they can decently slip in.

But she's not doing any conversational, one-on-one print interviews. In as much as anything about a press junket is authentic, the atmosphere of faux intimacy of a one-on-one comes closest: there's also more chance of slipping in a deeply personal question - something like, "So, Meg, what really happened between you and Dennis/Russell?"

The Quaid/Crowe phenomenon is sort of like having a 400-kilogram gorilla on the other side of the room that everyone is aware of but uncertain how directly to acknowledge. Someone lamely skirts the gorilla by asking what "it was like working with two Australian actors, Crowe and Jackman, in two successive films". Ryan replies, without missing a beat, that Australian leading men seem singularly generous and professional.

"Hugh is amazingly versatile and talented," she says. "If they had thrown a song into the script, he would have sung it beautifully. And Russell is a wonderful actor and a generous person to work with."

Kate and Leopold is a romantic comedy. The subject matter - pursuing one's heart, balancing family responsibilities, taking a leap literally - provides a pretty easy segue into all the personal stuff making it a bit of a minefield for the image-conscious celebrity.

Today, frankly, Ryan deserves accolades for just showing up. It is standard for Hollywood citizens in the midst of any sort of personal upheaval - marital discord, drug charges, road rage or, God forbid, rumours that they are gay - to pass on press junkets even when they have movies to promote. How many questions will the movie score, goes the logic, when there's a juicy personal scandal to pursue?

Kate and Leopold puts a time-travel slant on Ryan's signature genre: Jackman is a 19th-century nobleman who slips through a portal on the Brooklyn Bridge to charge into the life of harried, 21st-century businesswoman, Ryan. He literally sweeps her off her feet - exposing the banality of her contemporary suitors - on a white steed. And, unlike his contemporary rivals, he knows about opera, flowers and table placement.

The movie also delves into the vexing question of women trying to balance career and home life. At 40, Ryan is a pretty good example of a woman trying to have it all and succeeding at it pretty well. She met Quaid on the set of a film called Flesh and Bone, had a son, Jack, nine years ago and seemed to carefully balance marriage and family with movies and celebrity for the best part of a decade. Which is probably why, when the two worlds collided rather dramatically, the fallout was intense.

Ryan said she had expected a few potshots in the gossip columns about her personal life running amok. Still, she and Quaid seem to be on very amicable terms and have joint custody of their son Jack, whom she describes as "the number-one man in my life".

In her next film, Against the Ropes, Ryan plays an American boxing manager of some note, Jackie Kallen. It is so far from the current drama of her life she's only too happy to talk about it.